The Logistics Network is an important facet of many player factories. I was unpleasantly surprised when I saw that the Logistics Network is locked behind so many different research trees - pre 0.15 it is one of the first things I would research.
I suggest moving the basic Logistics Network back to requiring just Red Green and Blue research (maybe 200 of each, enabling the basic system), then moving the Worker Bots speed and capacity upgrades to higher in the research tree. Even slow bots are a big boon to an early factory, especially with this many new research trees!

Yes, the logistics chests that are currently locked off are not that much of a leap in technology from the Passive Provider and Storage Chests we got unlocked with the bots, which makes the current requirements seem very artificial.

The Requester and Active Provider Chests are really just taking the Character Logistic Slots and Logistic Trash Slots respectively and making them into chests.

In light of that, I suggest making those prerequisites and making the research of similar difficulty.

Me too - I was very unpleasantly surprised today to learn that I can have the whole robots network on green and red packs only, except the requester chest, which becomes possible pretty much at the end of the game, behind blue, production and high tech packs.
I started a new game with 15.0 but I'm ditching it - it just isn't fun to play up to end game solely on transport belts.

You only need 150 of each science pack (except military and space I think) to unlock the requester chests. If you're that desperate then just craft some science by hand or with a throwaway assembler + chest setup. 150 science packs is not very prohibitive.

I like the fact that there is a split now for logistic network related tech. At the first stage you gain the ability to use construction bots and have logistic bots bring items directly to your character (or take them away with trash slots). Then later you have another stage where you can further automate your base with the active provider and requester chests. Previously you could gain access to all of that at basically the same time.

This just feels like a typical complaint of an in-development game -- something changes that is different than you are used to, but it may be better for the game overall and for future new players to have it changed like this.

Roxor128 wrote:Yes, the logistics chests that are currently locked off are not that much of a leap in technology from the Passive Provider and Storage Chests we got unlocked with the bots, which makes the current requirements seem very artificial.

The Requester and Active Provider Chests are really just taking the Character Logistic Slots and Logistic Trash Slots respectively and making them into chests.

In light of that, I suggest making those prerequisites and making the research of similar difficulty.

I'm surprised I don't see more people questioning this one. I posted in the FFF about this but I see it brought up here as well. On my map I researched everything I need to do robotics, and can build every item that I would need. I did all of that with Science pack 1 and Science pack 2. But Just to get the logistics chests, it will require me to setup production for more items than everything I've built so far. So my choices are this:

1. Setup all of the required production with belts, then once I get logistics chests tear everything back down and re setup with logistics so I can scale it.

2. Try to set it up as I would for logistics and just move everything by hand between chests until I can get logistics chests.

3. Try to craft everything that I can by hand and move the items around to get the bare minimum. Then setup real production using a mix of belts and logistics.

Since I'm also trying to get the "lazy bastard" achievement, number 3 is out. So at this point I do completely agree that it might almost be worth it to just go for the rocket silo and skip logistics all together, since I'll have to setup all of the stuff required to get a rocket silo anyway.

This is such a big roadblock for basically no gain. I'd guess they want to help steer you to use other things before using logistics, but it's basically forcing you to play the game a specific way which will probably make you do things twice over when you really didn't need to. I could certainly see if they wanted a small roadblock of like science pack 3, because you need to unlock 3's to get plastic for Red circuits to build the chests, and once you do that you'll already have the ingredients required to make science pack 3s.

Currently Production science packs require you to automate production of electric furnaces which you might not normally do at all, and you have to setup an entire module production and processing units just to get the high tech one. I almost always set that up using logistics because of all of the random ingredients you'll need to combine together. So it's either move all of that by hand, or string a temporary setup together with belts, then tear it all down to build a proper one once you get the chests.

Roxor128 wrote:Yes, the logistics chests that are currently locked off are not that much of a leap in technology from the Passive Provider and Storage Chests we got unlocked with the bots, which makes the current requirements seem very artificial.

The Requester and Active Provider Chests are really just taking the Character Logistic Slots and Logistic Trash Slots respectively and making them into chests.

In light of that, I suggest making those prerequisites and making the research of similar difficulty.

I can't get the mod portal to open right now, but I'll definitely be checking this out. Hopefully they will tweak this in the base game a bit to make it less artificially limited, because you'll lose the ability to get achievements for just putting a single mod on. I'd certainly be using this for modded games though as I can only imagine how crazy it could get with the current system.

Roxor128 wrote:Yes, the logistics chests that are currently locked off are not that much of a leap in technology from the Passive Provider and Storage Chests we got unlocked with the bots, which makes the current requirements seem very artificial.

The Requester and Active Provider Chests are really just taking the Character Logistic Slots and Logistic Trash Slots respectively and making them into chests.

In light of that, I suggest making those prerequisites and making the research of similar difficulty.

Playing devil's advocate... one might argue that we get access to logistic and construction bots too early. Perhaps the adjustment that needs to be made is to give the access to logistic networks after blue or even purple science instead of needing only red and green. Then you would make the jump to the final research after you get high tech science as it is now. Right now the gap is really big between your first logistic tech and the final logistic tech. Everyone here seems to want the final tech moved earlier, but why not move the initial tech later instead?

People love bots and also are set in their ways after playing this game for years already. But when you really think about it, flying robots that automatically move things around should definitely be a late game acquisition. I certainly think it should be a later tech tier than when we get trains, so at least blue science for all of it. I also like the idea of spreading the logistic tech between a couple tiers so you can't get it all at once. I agree though that the gap from when you get your first access to when you get the rest of it is pretty big right now. If I had my way I would make the initial logistic tech start at blue + purple and leave the final stuff with blue + purple + yellow as it is now, then it would be one tier apart and at an appropriate stage of the game.

Pre 0.15 I could do most things by belt easily. I focused most of my early base around research production, and getting the 4 components together for the blue science packs was sometimes a bit tricky, but never impossible. But now? With -7- separate research trees even getting all the research potions to the labs is a challenge, let alone getting the production facilities for them all together. It's nice for people who -want- to go insane with belts, but not everyone is looking for that particular challenge, especially if there's another mechanic available.
Crafting the research packs by hand isn't possible. The hightech ones require Processing Units (450 of em in total for the needed packs). Beyond that, yea... handcrafting just to get the system you want before you can build the rest of your factory. You're waiting to break through that barrier - you shouldn't have to in my opinion. Early factories that go nuts with bots will have problems of their own - they are energy hogs and initially they are very slow, and roboports are very expensive early on. This limits overuse.

Last edited by Aeternus on Mon May 08, 2017 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Agreed - I don't see why there needs to be such a large jump between logistics needed just for construction, and the full logistics system. I've played two new games now on 0.15 and in both I ended up creating a single assembler for purple/gold science, and manually ferrying ingredients around between assemblers to get this research out of the way.

Perhaps it's fine for some playres, but how I play it's really a pain.

Kelderek wrote:
This just feels like a typical complaint of an in-development game -- something changes that is different than you are used to, but it may be better for the game overall and for future new players to have it changed like this.

Most new players are never going to reach bots and logistic networks, in fact most Factorio players won't even launch a rocket (that's just what we know from Steam stats applied to video-games, most players don't actually finish games they own, even for big story-driven games like Mass Effect, The Witcher, ..., we can assume the same with Factorio and the rocket).

Bots and logistic networks are one tech too high, not one tech too low.
Bots have their own challenges and need to be properly set up.

If they are too good, then it would be better to tune bots&logistics network balance rather than make bots something that you can only get after 5/10+ hours.

I don't know if you're talking to me or OP but I do automate my science and my labs. I certainly have a faster tech rate than 1 potion per minute. With that tech rate, it would take so long to reach bots or rocket tech (20h+? 50h?). You are free to go slower in tech progression and enjoy the ride but the *current* game balance allows a much faster tech rate so I don't know what's your point with your message (besides being rude).

Agreed. This is a builder zen game (at least for me ). But still, if you're going to increase the required logistics complexity to get new things unlocked (new research trees) and at the same time take away a tool to deal with that complexity, and lock it away behind that stuff... is the whole point of this game to automate everything? Bulk moving stuff by hand just to get something done just seems... wrong to me. With the logistics system you could easily concentrate production of things like electric mines and furnaces from belts, then move those higher resource, lower volume units by botnet to the research producing assemblers. Intuitively the game tells me that's the best way to do it, but you -can't- because the logistics system won't unlock until you've already done some of that research.

The logi robots themselves are fine costwise - you need to set up pretty much the entire basic factory with petro refining, plastics, acid for batteries, lube for electric engines, advanced circuits... they're plenty expensive by themselves, and roboports aren't cheap either, at least not for early factories that are still tapping only one iron mine or so.

The only issue I have is that the logistics network requires high-tech packs, when IMO they should only require production packs in addition to red, green & blue.
To me, high-tech to me means "advanced upgrades", not "additional functionality", while space packs means "just keep swimming" (sorry, been watching too much Nemo).

Aeternus wrote:Bulk moving stuff by hand just to get something done just seems... wrong to me.

Not having access to requester chests does not equate to having to do things by hand. By the time you would be even considering logistic bots you already have belts and trains available. If you are desperate for that requester chest you could craft or move some science packs by hand or you could automate it using belts like everything else in the early game.

Aeternus wrote: Intuitively the game tells me that's the best way to do it

This is an entirely subjective opinion. There is no right or wrong way to do things in a game like this and the game certainly doesn't have a way that it "tells you" how to do it. You use the tools that are available and if later on you find a better tool then you can switch to that. Just because it's your preference to do a science pack build using logistic bots doesn't mean everyone else will. As it is right now most people will automate it with belts and then once the requester chest is unlocked some people will redo the build in favor of that and others will keep the science packs as a belt system and use bots for other things.

This is similar to saying that substations are the best way to distribute power to your factory, therefore we should get substations much earlier in the game. The problem is that would break progression and greatly devalue small and medium poles. I can get along with small poles just fine even if I don't prefer to use them until I get access to medium ones and eventually substations. In the same fashion, if you get full access to logistic bots too early, then it may devalue the use of belts and trains.

IMO the requester chest should be available no earlier than purple science and I am totally fine with it being high tech science as it is now. It's fairly cheap at only 150 science packs so anyone who is more desperate for early bot usage has an easy way to unlock it even without a full build of yellow science packs automated yet (compare that to 1000+ science of things like nuclear and kovarex enrichment).

There are several things that would fall into the "additional functionality" category that require high tech science. Kovarex enrichment, rocket silo, uranium ammo and bomb, portable fusion reactor just to name a few. These are things that you gain access to for the first time at high tech science level.

There's a few key points I was thinking of making, and some of your comment gives the perfect place for them.

Kelderek wrote:
If you are desperate for that requester chest you could craft or move some science packs by hand or you could automate it using belts like everything else in the early game.

For me, at least, it's not about making the production/high-tech science packs with the logistics bots - all that I do on my main bus. It's about being able to easily automate the building of assemblers, oil wells, chemical plans, refineries, plus supporting infrastructure such as inserters (long, filter), power poles, splitters, underground belts - basically things that are needed in small(ish) quantities when building stuff, so only a single logistics-supplied assembler is more than enough capacity. Once they're running with logistics then it makes the expansion needed (to get production + high tech science up and running nicely) much easier, removing the need for hand-crafting most things.

Kelderek wrote:
This is an entirely subjective opinion. There is no right or wrong way to do things in a game like this and the game certainly doesn't have a way that it "tells you" how to do it.

But, with this change, the game is telling me not to use logistics to deliver - taking away my choice to get the full logistics system up and running once blue science is automated. Making the full logistics system available from blue science, as before, does not force anyone to actually use it. And oddly, the rest of the logistics system, including delivering to the player themselves, only needs red+green science! One small addition - delivery to machines - needing such a jump in science requirements - just seems crazy.

So far, in my two playthrougs on 0.15, I've been so frustrated without requester chests at this point I've set up single purple/gold science assemblers, a handful of assemblers for the ingredients, and just manually moved resources around until i've got the required science packs. This is a very tedious period in the game, and it really spoils the experience.

Maybe I'll eventually learn to play differently and it won't be so bad, maybe it'll put me off the game, or maybe I'll just have to install the mod that reverts this back - but while I do use mods, I don't like the idea of actually making a change to core gameplay - rather just adding new features I can choose to use or not while playing.

Kelderek wrote:
This is similar to saying that substations are the best way to distribute power to your factory, therefore we should get substations much earlier in the game. The problem is that would break progression and greatly devalue small and medium poles. I can get along with small poles just fine even if I don't prefer to use them until I get access to medium ones and eventually substations. In the same fashion, if you get full access to logistic bots too early, then it may devalue the use of belts and trains.

Ditto on loving small power poles. And they're a perfect candidate for building with requester chests: not needed in high quantities, and without requester chests you have to manually deliver raw wood to the system.

I don't think anyone complaining on this thread is asking for the full logistics system to be available really early - but rather restored to it's 0.14 state - red, green and blue science only. Yes, blue science is a little easier now - you don't need batteries any more(?) - but you still need oil refining in place for the plastiic in advanced circuits, so the complexity isn't reduced that much. Perhaps increase the requirements from 150 science packs (to 200 or more?) to make up for this?